Founder and CEO of Flowhub Kyle Sherman has crazy luck \u2014 and courage \u2014 on city streets.<\/p>\n
Growing up in Barrington, Illinois, he was a movie-obsessed kid and a hopeful future filmmaker, going as far as ordering Sundance Film Festival merchandise from eBay to look the part. When he was 17, he stumbled upon the production of Marc Forster\u2019s \u201cStranger Than Fiction\u201d in downtown Chicago and asked the first crew member he saw if he could intern. The eager entrepreneur credits wearing Sundance\u2019s signature director puffy jacket that day to the production saying \u201cyes.\u201d<\/p>\n
After graduating high school early and bypassing college, Sherman headed for Los Angeles, where he spent the next decade in entertainment. He discovered medical marijuana to help manage the stress that came with his career choice. Finding so much relief, he was compelled to make another move to pursue his newfound passion for advocacy and legalization \u2014 this time to Colorado to get into the cannabis industry as it was taking shape.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so serendipitous, that first day I got to Denver, I met Tripp Keber (the co-founder and then-CEO of Dixie Brands). I recognized him on the street from a block away and ran right up to him,\u201d shares Sherman, who was recently in Aspen as part of the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference (he was first invited as a speaker in 2016). \u201cI always tell people that you should always research in depth about whatever it is you want to do, because if you\u2019re prepared for the opportunity when it arises, you just never know what might happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
That chance encounter resulted in a marketing position at Dixie, where he had a crash course in canna-business. Sherman went on to work at the online dispensary resource Weedmaps and as the chief compliance officer at Neos, where he navigated state regulation needs for the vertically integrated company.<\/p>\n
Realizing a major void in reporting data to the state and in tracking inventory, Sherman explains, \u201cIn 2015, I said \u2018OK, I\u2019m just going to start my own company.\u2019 I knew the laws and at that point, everything was just getting entered manually. I couldn\u2019t ever get ahold of anyone to help push the process forward and we were losing data. I\u2019m just thinking, \u2018This is ripe for disruption.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Sherman adds, \u201cIt was really just a fascinating time of learning because the regulators were still trying to figure it out, too. I was audited in 2014 by the state and it was really stressful. I couldn\u2019t pull the data they needed. So my next chapter became, \u2018Let\u2019s use technology and capitalism to end the war on cannabis.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Since then, Sherman has grown Flowhub from a team of one to having 70 employees in its headquarters near Union Station and expanded its software footprint into more than 700 dispensaries, working with 30 integrators across 11 legal states. While point of sale and employee solutions are at the company\u2019s core, Flowhub also serves retailers to drive business by helping to streamline everything from scaling operations and managing risk to providing data via application programming interface. Flowhub also offers a mobile device \u2014 the patented NUG scanner \u2014 that\u2019s compatible with two proprietary apps to manage inventory and scan customer IDs, reducing wait times during peak hours.<\/p>\n
Flowhub also enables an easy implementation of rewards programs which, for local retailers like The Green Joint, sets them apart from the majority of downtown Aspen dispensaries by offering loyalty points that grant deeply discounted products.<\/p>\n
\u201cFlowhub\u2019s supreme software and support team has been a pivotal partner for us, which we\u2019ve grown with for over three years,\u201d says Brian Sullivan, vice president of retail operations at The Green Joint. \u201cTheir platform has been a crucial component to the success we have achieved throughout our retail operations. Flowhub has a robust inventory management system, which tracks and records all activities, and ensures that we remain 100% compliant at all times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roots Rx has six locations based in the tourist-heavy mountain communities of Aspen, Basalt, Eagle-Vail, Edwards, Gunnison and Leadville.<\/p>\n
\u201cFlowhub provides tracking codes that allow us to identify patterns in our promotions giving us a clearer picture of our sales,\u201d adds Brittany Centifanto, general manager at Roots Rx. \u201cGaining insight into when product sells is such a valuable tool that Flowhub continues to deliver on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sherman, who also is the founding director and treasurer of the Cannabis Trade Federation, which is focused on lobbying for passage of the STATES Act (a bill introduced by senators Cory Gardner and Elizabeth Warren in 2018 that would amend the Controlled Substances Act, exempting state-approved marijuana activity from federal enforcement), assures that Flowhub is not a cannabis company but rather a \u201ctechnology backbone\u201d for the ever-expanding landscape of cannabis retail across the country: \u201cWe really believe that if we provide best-in-class (service) to our customers, they\u2019re going to provide best-in-class experiences to their customers and legalization will spread. Prohibition can, and will, end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Katie Shapiro can be reached at katie@katieshapiromedia.com<\/a> and followed on Twitter @bykatieshapiro.<\/p>\n